THE BIRD IN THE BAMBOO CAGE
Hazel Gaynor

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Copyright © Hazel Gaynor 2020

Cover design by Caroline Young © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Cover photographs © Jelena Simic Petrovic / Arcangel Images (woman), Seb Oliver/GettyImage (girl), Shuttershock.com (all other images)

Hazel Gaynor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Excerpt from ‘Caged Bird’ taken from Shaker Why Don’t You Sing by Maya Angelou © 1983. Reprinted with permission from Little, Brown Book Group.

Girl Guide Laws taken from Girl Guiding by Robert Baden-Powell © 1918.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008393632

Ebook Edition © September 2018 ISBN: 9780008393656

Version: 2021-04-29

Dedication

For Damien, Max, and Sam –

my favourite story of all.

Epigraph

‘Girls! Imagine that a battle has taken place in and around your town or village … What are you going to do? Are you going to sit down, and wring your hands and cry, or are you going to be plucky, and go out and do something to help?’

Agnes Baden-Powell, co-founder of the Girl Guides

‘The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill

of things unknown

but longed for still

and his tune is heard

on the distant hill

for the caged bird

sings of freedom.’

Maya Angelou, ‘Caged Bird’ from Shaker Why Don’t You Sing?

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

PROLOGUE

OCCUPATION: 1941–1943

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

INTERNMENT: 1943–1945

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

Mouse

Elspeth

LIBERATION: 1945

Nancy

Nancy

Elspeth

Nancy

Elspeth

REMEMBRANCE: 1975

Nancy

Nancy

EPILOGUE

Author Note

Further Reading

Reading Group Questions

A Brief History of the Girl Guides

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Hazel Gaynor

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE
NANCY
Oxford, 1975

We didn’t talk about it afterwards. Not to loved ones, or to neighbours who stared at us from across the street, or to the newspaper men who were curious to know more about these lost children, returned from the war in China like ghosts come back from the dead. We quietly packed it all away in our battered suitcases and stepped awkwardly back into the lives we’d once known. Eventually, everyone stopped asking; stopped staring and wondering. Like our suitcases gathering dust in the attic, we were forgotten.

But we didn’t forget.

Those years clung to us like a midday shadow, waiting to trip us up when we least expected it: a remembered song, a familiar scent, a name overheard in a shop, and there we were in an instant, wilting in the stifling heat during roll-call, kept awake at night by the ache of unimaginable hunger. I suppose it was inevitable that we would talk about it in the end; that we would tell the story of our war.

I’m still surprised by how much I have to say; how much I remember. I’d assumed I would only recall odd scraps and incoherent fragments, but it has all become clearer despite being ignored; the memories sharpened by distance and time. Now, when I talk about my school years in China, people only want to hear the parts about occupation and internment. That’s the story everyone wants me to tell; how terrible it was and how frightened we were. But I also remember the smaller, simpler moments of a young girl’s school days: smudged ink on fingertips, disinfectant in the corridors, hopscotch squares and skipping games, the iridescent wings of a butterfly that danced through the classroom window one autumn morning and settled on the back of my hand. I want to tell that side of my story, too.

Perhaps part of me wishes I could go back to the time before; that I could appreciate those quiet, inconsequential days before everything changed: giggling into our hands when Miss Kent’s back was turned, grumbling to Sprout about lumpy porridge, turning cartwheels with Mouse on the golden sands of the bay, exchanging secret whispers in the pitch dark of the dorm. Unprepared for what lay ahead, we clattered thoughtlessly on through the careful precision of school routine – breakfast and prayers, assembly and lessons, tiffin and supper, Sibling Saturday and Empire Day – wildly ignorant of our privileges; and of how much we were about to lose.

Our war arrived quietly, two weeks before Christmas, settling over the terracotta roof tiles of Chefoo School with the first of the season’s snow. Safe in our beds, over one hundred boys and girls slept soundly, oblivious to the events happening at Pearl Harbor over five thousand miles away; unaware that the ripples of conflict were racing across the Pacific toward us.

I was ten years old that winter. Brownie Guides was my favourite part of the school week, and my feet still couldn’t quite reach the floor when I sat on the edge of my bed …

PART ONE: OCCUPATION
Chefoo, Shantung Province, China
1941–1943
THE GUIDE LAW: A GUIDE IS LOYAL

This does not mean that she thinks her friends and family and school are perfect; far from it. But there is a way of standing up for what is dear to you, even though you admit that it has its faults.

NANCY
China Inland Mission School, Chefoo, December 1941

‘We’ve been contacted by your parents, Nancy,’ Miss Kent said, arms folded across her rose-pink cardigan as she stood beside the window. ‘I’m afraid you won’t be spending the Christmas holidays with them after all.’

Her words seemed to echo off the wood-panelled walls of the principal’s office – a small suffocating room that smelled of linseed oil and bad news – so that I heard them again and again. You won’t be spending the Christmas holidays with them after all. I wanted to cover my ears. I didn’t want it to be true.

I stood in the middle of an Oriental rug, the pattern worn away by years of children coming and going to receive bad news, or the sharp end of the principal’s tongue. I looked up at my teacher, and couldn’t think of one word to say.

‘Your mother sent a letter each for you and Edward,’ Miss Kent continued. She held out an envelope, addressed to me in my mother’s elegant handwriting. I stared at it. ‘Well?’ she prompted. ‘It won’t read itself.’

Reluctantly, I took the envelope, opened it, and removed the letter. The scent of English lavender bloomed around me as I read.

I’m so desperately sorry to disappoint you again, Nonny, but your father insists it’s too dangerous for us to travel with the Chinese and Japanese armies still fighting. Besides, the roads are in a desperate state after the recent landslides. You should have seen the rain! I’m sure you’ll have wonderful fun with your friends. I can’t wait to see you, darling. How you must have grown!

I imagined Mummy at her writing desk, the sun on her face, her pen poised in mid-air as she composed the next sentence. I imagined her more often than I saw her.

Since starting my first term at the school two years earlier, my parents’ missionary work had taken them from the China Inland Mission compound at the International Settlement in Shanghai all the way to Ch’ing-hai Province on the other side of the country. Hard winters, landslides and the Sino-Japanese war had, in turns, prevented them from travelling back to Chefoo; back to me.

Seeing my eyes fill with tears, Miss Kent offered an encouraging, ‘Come along now. Chin up.’ She studied me through her round wire spectacles. The grey eyes that peered at me, often so serious, carried a hint of an apology, as if she somehow felt it were her fault that I would spend another Christmas away from my parents. ‘Better to be safe than sorry,’ she concluded. ‘And think about all the displaced Chinese children and refugees who are benefitting from your parents’ missionary work.’ She gave a little smile. ‘And at least Dorothy and Joan – or should I say, “Sprout and Mouse” – are staying, too, so that’s something, isn’t it?’

She hadn’t used my friends’ nicknames before. I suppose she did it to make me feel better.

I held the sheet of writing paper to my nose. ‘It smells of her,’ I whispered. ‘Of lavender. Her favourite.’ I tucked the letter into my pinafore pocket and wiped a tear from my cheek. ‘She likes the smell of sweet peas, too. And roses. She doesn’t care for lily-of-the-valley though. It makes her sneeze.’ My mother had become a collection of such memories; scraps and fragments I rummaged through. ‘I really did want to see her, Miss. Ever so much.’ I pushed my hands into my pockets. ‘It isn’t fair.’

I hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. Self-pity was not a trait to be admired, and homesickness was considered ‘sentimental nonsense’. We were often reminded how disappointed our parents would be to learn that we were thinking only of ourselves, but still, it was unfair that I couldn’t see Mummy, and I didn’t care that I’d said so.

Miss Kent asked me to join her at the window. We stood for a moment, side by side in silence. I wondered if she might place a comforting arm around my shoulder, but she kept her arms folded and looked straight ahead.

‘What do you see outside?’ she asked.

I reached up onto my tiptoes. Beyond the window, several school servants, dressed in their uniforms of cropped black trousers and a white blouse with knotted buttons, were busy with various tasks. ‘I can see Shu Lan carrying a basket of laundry. And Wei Huan, with a rake and broom …’ I trailed off as we watched them work.

Wei Huan, one of the school gardeners, had helped us with our Gardener badge for Brownies that summer. He called us his ‘Little Flowers’. Shu Lan was less friendly and wasn’t very popular among the girls as a result. If we interrupted her before she’d finished tidying our dorm, she would shoo us away with her hands, and mutter things at us in Chinese.

‘Perhaps it isn’t fair that Shu Lan has to carry that heavy basket, full of our dirty bedsheets,’ Miss Kent said. ‘Or perhaps it isn’t fair for Wei Huan to sweep up the leaves that we walk over and kick into the air, for fun.’

I thought about my amah, one of many ‘little mothers’ at the Mission compound in Shanghai, who’d helped with domestic chores while our parents carried out their missionary work. Having our own servant had been a novelty when we’d first arrived from England, but I hardly noticed them now. I certainly didn’t think about all the work they did to make our lives more comfortable.

‘We might see them as the school’s servants, but that’s just their job,’ Miss Kent continued. ‘They’re also somebody’s daughters and sons, and no doubt they also receive disappointing news from time to time, and wish they could see their mothers more often. Life isn’t always fair for them, either.’

When she was cross, Miss Kent spoke in a way that reminded me of brittle twigs snapping underfoot on autumn walks. I pressed the toe of my shoe against the skirting board and felt my cheeks go red. Without giving me a ticking-off, she’d done exactly that.

‘We all have to make the best of the circumstances we are given, Nancy,’ she continued, as she turned to face me, her expression softening a little. ‘All things considered, I’d say we have plenty to be grateful for. Don’t you?’

I nodded, and bit my lip. ‘Yes, Miss.’

‘Then we won’t need to discuss things being fair or not again, shall we?’

I shook my head and took Miss Kent’s handkerchief from my pocket to wipe my tears. The embroidered letters EK and HE had started to fray a little, but the fabric still carried the scent of roses and kindness, just as it had when Miss Kent had first given it to me.

She let out a funny little gasp. ‘Gosh! So that’s where it went.’

‘You gave it to me on the boat, remember? When we left Shanghai.’ I thought about the promise she’d made to Mummy, to keep a special eye on me during the journey to Chefoo. Miss Kent had given me the handkerchief to dry my tears as I stood beside her at the railings. I’d waved madly to Mummy until she’d eventually disappeared beneath a sea of colourful rice-paper parasols held by elegant ladies sheltering their faces from the sun. ‘I’m sorry, Miss,’ I said as I held the handkerchief out to her. ‘I should have given it back.’

She hesitated before closing my fingers around it. ‘It’s yours now. Let it be a reminder that there’s always somebody worse off, no matter how rotten things might seem.’ She let her hand rest on mine for just a moment before folding her arms again. ‘Now, run along.’

I forced a smile as I left the office and set off down the corridor.

‘And pull your socks up, Nancy Plummer,’ she called after me. ‘It’s impossible to feel cheerful with socks sagging around your ankles like bread dough.’

I added Mummy’s letter to the collection I kept in the tea caddy beneath my bed. It was almost full of letters and other special things that reminded me of her: a button from her coat, a photograph of us standing outside our house in England, the eye of a peacock feather I’d found in the Pleasure Gardens in Shanghai. Simple mementoes of time spent with her; precious treasures while we were forced to be apart.

Even my best friend, Sprout, couldn’t cheer me up as we got ready for Brownies.

‘It’s not the end of the world, Plum,’ she said, using my nickname, as she tucked a strand of wispy blonde hair behind her sticky-out ear and made herself go cross-eyed to make me laugh. ‘We’ll have plenty of fun. And you’ll see her in the spring.’

Sprout – given her nickname for being skinny as a bamboo stalk, and much taller than the rest of us – was from Connecticut, in America, which made her fascinating to me, a freckled English girl who’d grown up in the Sussex countryside and enunciated everything in Received Pronunciation. Sprout spoke with a lovely loose confidence that I envied and admired. Out of nearly two hundred children who attended the school – mostly British nationals, a dozen or so Americans, and a handful of Canadians, Australians and Dutch – Dorothy ‘Sprout’ Hinshaw was the funniest, and most interesting person I’d ever met. She was also very good at getting herself into trouble. I often wished I could be more like her: more American and carefree.

For once, I wasn’t in the mood for Brownies that evening. I tried not to let it show as we stood in our Fairy Ring and said the Brownie Promise because, as Sixer of Pixies, I had to set a good example to the rest of the girls. As we recited the familiar words, I really did promise to do my best and serve my king and country and help other people, but a flush of shame rushed to my cheeks when I promised to love my God. I wanted to, very much, but I had an awful lot of questions about Him that nobody could ever answer, mostly about why He never answered my prayers to see Mummy. To make up for it, I squeezed my eyes shut extra tight as we said the Amen.

I’d been a Pixie since joining the 2nd Chefoo Brownies in my first term. We were one of two Brownie Guide packs, and several Girl Guide and Boy Scout groups at the school. I’d worked hard for Golden Bar, and the interest badges I’d sewn onto the sleeve of my tunic – Booklover, Thrift, Musician, Gardener, Collector and, most recently, First Aider. Every badge earned was a source of immense pride, each one a step towards becoming a Girl Guide. I was especially proud of the second yellow stripe I’d been awarded recently to signify my appointment as Sixer.

Our Guide leaders, Miss Kent and Miss Butterworth, were known as Brown Owl and Tawny Owl during our meetings. They were different at Brownies. Less strict. It was part of the reason we all enjoyed it so much.

‘We’ll be doing Christmas paper craft this evening,’ Brown Owl announced when we’d all sung our Six Songs and she’d finished inspecting our hands, nails and hair. ‘I’ve asked Shu Lan to help. I’m sure you will all make her feel very welcome.’

We always admired the intricate ‘window flowers’ Shu Lan made and hung at the dormitory windows every spring as symbols of good fortune and happiness for the new season. She called them chuanghua. We watched in awe as she started to make delicate paper snowflakes with the same skill and precision. We did our best with our scissors, but our snowflakes were simple and clumsy, while Shu Lan’s were as beautiful as the real thing. Only Mouse managed to make anything half decent.

‘That’s ever so good,’ I said, offering her an encouraging smile.

Joan ‘Mouse’ Nuttall – nicknamed because she was always so quiet – muttered a ‘Thank you.’ I felt a little sorry for her, although I’d never admitted it to anyone. Like a doll you’ve grown tired of playing with, most of the time I forgot she was there.

‘You make many folds, and then, very carefully cutting,’ Shu Lan explained as we all started again with a fresh piece of paper.

Sprout’s sister, Connie (who was ever so grown up, and styled her hair just like Princess Elizabeth) had once told us that Shu Lan, and some of the other servants, had come to Chefoo as refugees from the city of Nanking, where something terrible had happened a few years ago. She wouldn’t say what the terrible thing was, only that it was something to do with the Japanese Imperial Army, and that lots of Chinese people had died rather horribly. I tried not to think about it as I watched Shu Lan make her paper snowflakes. I found her fascinating. She was so beautiful I had to force myself not to stare, because that was rude.

Apart from the local fishermen we often saw at the bay, and the occasional rickshaw puller rushing past the school gates, the school servants were the only Chinese people we saw regularly. When the wind blew in the right direction, we could hear the bells from the Buddhist temples, and from the upstairs dormitory windows we sometimes watched the little hongtou sampans on the bay, and the graceful junks with their bamboo sails spread wide like enormous wings. At harvest time, we liked to watch the farmers and their water buffalo working in the fields, traditional bamboo hats shading the farmers from the baking sun, the women pulling the ripe plants from the ground, often while carrying their babies on their backs. That was the China I’d imagined when I’d looked in Edward’s atlas before we’d left England; the China I’d been so excited to visit. Part of me wanted to climb over the school walls and run through the rice fields; to know what life was like for a ten-year-old Chinese girl.

While we worked, Miss Kent asked Shu Lan to tell us about her great-great-grandfather, an imperial metalsmith who’d made beautiful jewellery using feathers from kingfisher wings.

‘The feathers are placed close together, to look like enamel,’ she explained. ‘The jewellery is very delicate.’ She described the elegant aristocrats – wives and daughters of emperors – who’d worn the treasured pieces. I enjoyed the story until we learned that the kingfishers were captured in nets, their feathers taken from them while they were still alive in order to preserve their beautiful blue colour.

‘But that’s cruel,’ I said.

‘And yet it is a Chinese tradition, and a highly valued skill,’ Miss Kent countered. ‘We can’t simply dismiss things that are unfamiliar to us as cruel, Nancy. We must learn to understand, and respect.’

Even so, I was relieved when Shu Lan explained that the activity was now illegal. We finished our snowflakes in silence.

That night, I dreamed of lost things and of kingfishers trapped in a metalsmith’s net. I was still dreaming when I was woken by the sound of an approaching aeroplane. The dormitory was dark as I crept out of bed and tiptoed to the window. The floorboards were cold. They creaked beneath my bare feet.

As I opened the shutter, a Japanese plane flew low over the school chapel and headed out across the bay. In the distance, a line of soldiers marched toward a truck. The Japanese army had occupied the city of Chefoo a year before I’d arrived at the school, so I was used to seeing the soldiers coming and going on operations against their enemy. We understood that Britain wasn’t at war with Japan, so although it was unusual for one of their planes to fly so close to the school, I hardly gave it a moment’s thought and turned my attention instead to the fat snowflakes tumbling from the sky. I pressed my forehead to the glass, delighted by the spectacle.

I watched until I began to shiver from the cold and climbed back into bed. I pulled the sheets up to my nose, wrapped my arms around myself, and listened to the soft patter of snow at the window. I imagined Mummy lying awake somewhere too, remembering a time when we’d watched the snow together, missing me so much that her bones ached. I wished, more than anything, that I was with her and not stuck at school, and hoped I really would see her in the spring.

But wishes and hopes are fragile things, easily crushed by the marching boots of enemy soldiers.

ELSPETH

I rose before dawn, my sleep disturbed by the prospect of the difficult conversations the morning would bring, and by Japanese soldiers roaring past the school gates in their noisy trucks until the small hours. While I knew they posed no threat to a western missionary school, I didn’t care to be so close to other people’s disputes, especially when it kept me awake half the night and left unsightly bags under my eyes.

I washed and dressed and made my bed, hospital corners precisely tucked in, the eiderdown smoothed of any unsightly creases. A cursory glance in the mirror left me wishing I could remove the lines from my face as easily. I missed the Elspeth Kent I used to see in the reflection; the carefree young thing who’d smiled for a week when Harry Evans asked her to dance. I hoped I might still find some scraps of her in England. Stitch her back together. Make Do and Mend. After all, wasn’t that what the Ministry encouraged?

The decades-old floorboards creaked and cracked beneath my shoes as I made my way along the corridor and downstairs, past trophy cabinets and the many proud moments of the school’s history. Once outside, I took a moment to glance toward the waters of the bay and then hurried on across the courtyard, beneath the branches of the plum trees, to the old stone chapel. My footsteps echoed off the flagstones as I walked to the altar and bent my head in prayer before settling into a pew. I sat in silent thought, remembering the wedding day that had been cruelly taken from me, and the other I’d walked away from. I was six thousand miles away from home, and still they haunted me: the man I should have married, and the man who had nearly taken his place. Ghosts now, both of them.

Pushing my memories aside, I took my letter of resignation from my pocket. I’d agonized over the words for so long they were imprinted on my mind. It is with much difficulty, and after a great deal of personal anguish and reflection, that I must inform you of my intention to leave my position at Chefoo School and return to my family in England … For weeks it had idled among the pages of my Girl Guide Handbook. I would give it to the principal of the Girls’ School after assembly that morning, and confirm my intention to return to England on the next available steamer from Shanghai. There was no reason to delay further, although the prospect of telling Minnie Butterworth – my dearest friend on the teaching staff –wasn’t quite so straightforward. Calling off a wedding and travelling halfway around the world had been easy in comparison.

I sat in the chapel until the cold got the better of my faith, and made my way outside to discover a soft blanket of snow had fallen. It was a perfect winter morning, still and calm. I stood for a moment beneath the arched lintel of the chapel doorway, admiring the quiet beauty and the deliciously plump flakes. Across the courtyard, Shu Lan, was already busy with her day’s work. She paused to listen to the distant toll of the Buddhist temple bells. I listened too, imagining that they were saying goodbye. China was almost invisible beneath the western sensibilities of Chefoo School and its privileged offspring of missionaries and diplomats, so much so that I sometimes forgot I was in China at all. The temple bells and the snow-covered branches of the plum and gingko trees were a timely reminder of place, and that as the seasons moved on, so must I.

A smile laced the edge of my lips. Finally, I would set in motion the wheels that would lead me back home. But the heavy drone of an approaching aircraft interrupted the delicate silence, and saw my smile quickly fade.

Instinctively, I stepped back inside the chapel doorway and tipped my face skywards, shielding my eyes against the swirling snow. I brushed a stray curl from my cheek as I watched the aircraft pass directly overhead. I stared up at the distinctive red circles painted onto the wingtips, and tracked a stream of papers that tumbled from the rear of the craft before the pilot banked sharply over Chefoo harbour, and disappeared into the rose-tinted snow clouds.

When I was quite sure it had gone, I brushed snow from the bottom of my coat, and grabbed one of the papers as it fluttered toward me through the frigid air. I stood perfectly still as I read an English translation of the front page of a Japanese newspaper: We hereby declare War on the United States of America and the British Empire. The men and officers of Our Army and Navy shall do their utmost in prosecuting the war … I skimmed over the full declaration, my hand raised to my mouth in dread as I reached the signature, HIROHITO, and the distinctive chrysanthemum emblem of the Japanese Imperial Seal.

I leaned against the chapel wall to steady myself as the world seemed to tilt a little to one side.

It had happened then, just as we’d feared.

Britain was at war with Japan.

I immediately made my way back to the school building, my footprints sinking deep in the snow as I scooped up as many leaflets as I could. Across the courtyard, beneath the plum trees, I saw Shu Lan doing the same. We paused and looked at each other for the briefest moment before resuming our collection. As I turned the corner, I caught a glimpse of an eager little face peering out at the snow through an upstairs dormitory window, warm breaths misting the glass. Nancy Plummer. The sight of her set my mind racing. What would the declaration of war mean for the children with their parents already thousands of miles away? I sighed as I searched for the ocean in the distance. Perhaps it wasn’t too late. Maybe I could take a rickshaw to the harbour and set out for Shanghai later that morning.

When it was time for morning assembly, I slipped into the back of the packed hall, beside Minnie, who towered above me.

She tapped her wristwatch. ‘What kept you? It’s not like you to be late.’ If she noticed the fear and worry in my eyes, she was kind enough not to say anything.

Minnie had been at the school almost seven years. We hadn’t hit it off at first, my natural pessimism and faltering faith rather at odds with her stoic optimism and steadfast devoutness, but we’d recognized something familiar in our Northern sensibilities, not to mention the silent shame that surrounded women like us – surplus women, society’s problem – whatever term was fashionable at any given time. Despite our differences, we’d become the greatest of friends.

‘I’m not late,’ I replied, fussing with the bun at my neck which was all asunder.

Minnie narrowed her eyes at me, poised to ask more, but the rousing strains of ‘Imperial Echoes’, the accompanying theme music for the popular Radio Newsreel programme on the BBC Overseas Service, emerged from the wireless cabinet, and we all jumped to attention. I was relieved to be spared an interrogation. At that moment I was held together by the smallest fragments of resolve. It would take only a fraction of Minnie’s gentle kindness to set me off.

The hubbub of conversation subsided as the introductory music reached the final bars and we waited for the announcer’s smooth English accent. His steady delivery made even the worst news palatable to the very youngest ears, and had become another reassuring constant I’d come to rely on while I was so far from home.

‘This is London calling in the Overseas Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Here is the news, and this is Alvar Lidell reading it.’ Goosebumps ran along my arms. I laced my hands and cleared my throat, prepared to react appropriately to whatever he was about to say. ‘Japan’s long-threatened aggression in the Far East began tonight with air attacks on United States naval bases in the Pacific. Fresh reports are coming in every minute. The latest facts of the situation are these: messages from Tokyo say that Japan has announced a formal declaration of war against both the United States and Britain …’

An audible gasp rippled around the room. Minnie grabbed my hand.

‘Oh, Els! It’s happened. We’re at war with Japan.’ To hear her say the words out loud made everything horribly real. ‘We’re enemy aliens.’

I shushed her, a little too brusquely, as I strained to hear the rest of the broadcast.

‘Japan’s attacks on American naval bases in the Pacific were announced by President Roosevelt in a statement from the White House …’ the announcer continued, calmly relaying details of sustained Japanese bombing raids on an American naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with significant casualties reported. ‘President Roosevelt has ordered the mobilization of the United States army …’

The words settled ominously over the room as I observed the faces of my colleagues, watching closely for their reactions: Mr Collins, our ever-reliable headmaster; Amelia Prescott, all the colour drained from her usually ruddy cheeks; Ella Redmond, stoic as ever; Tom Martin, the Latin master; young Eleanor Yarwood, a recent addition to the teaching staff at the Prep School, and on and on. Even the boys’ PT master, Charlie Harris, was lacking his usual disarming smile. Everywhere I looked, a familiar face concealed the true emotions the announcement had stirred. We hid it well, but we all understood that Japan’s declaration of war against Britain changed everything. Missionary school or not, we were now the enemy, and we were in danger.

That winter had seen an unusually high number of children remain at school for the Christmas holidays, one hundred and twenty-four, in total. Just over a dozen staff and a handful of missionaries had also stayed, a few through choice, but most due to the Sino-Japanese war which made long journeys across the country too dangerous. The irony was not lost on me that danger had found us anyway.

My first instinct was to locate the girls from my class.

‘What are you doing?’ Minnie asked, as I reached up onto my tiptoes and began muttering under my breath.

‘Counting,’ I replied. ‘I can’t just stand here. I have to do something.’

For all their similarities, honed by the strict routines of school, it was the girls’ individuality I’d come to enjoy: Joan Nuttall, nicknamed Mouse, crippled by shyness but growing in confidence recently; Dorothy Hinshaw, nicknamed Sprout, the resident class clown, bursting with potential if only she would apply herself; and good-natured, ever-reliable Nancy Plummer, Plum to her friends, whom I’d recently appointed as Sixer of Pixies in the 2nd Chefoo Brownies. Nancy wasn’t the most natural leader, but was more than capable when given a nudge, and I was pleased to see her rise to the challenge. Despite being warned by several of the teachers about having favourites, the undeniable truth was that I’d grown fond of these three girls. I saw a little of myself in each of them: my past, certainly, but they also held a tantalizing sense of the present, and of a future full of possibility.

Aside from Joan, Nancy and Dorothy, Winnie, Agnes and Elsie were also present. Alice, Mary and Barbara had returned to their parents in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Bunty Browne had left for Australia only two days ago to rendezvous with her parents, who were already on furlough. I wondered how significant those last-minute decisions, and my own indecision, would prove to be. With the children’s parents dispersed all over China, reuniting them would be challenging, if not impossible. If I’d once felt uncertain about making an impromptu wharf-side promise to Lillian Plummer to keep a special eye on Nancy, I wondered what on earth that promise might mean now. Wherever Lillian Plummer was, I could feel her, urging me to keep my word; to keep watch over her daughter.

As the seriousness of the announcement began to sink in, the children turned to each other, wide-eyed. Some were upset, while others were excited to finally find themselves part of the war they had read and heard so much about. Some of the boys practised their rat-a-tat-a machine-gun noises as the rising drone of speculation and conjecture filled the room.

‘You don’t think Japanese soldiers will occupy the school, do you?’ Minnie whispered, voicing my own fears. ‘What if they come roaring through the gates in their awful trucks and fly their flag over the cricket pitch? I can’t stop thinking about Nanking.’

Neither could I.

The atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese army in Nanking had preceded my arrival in China, but the horrific massacre of thousands of Chinese civilians was so shocking it had left a deep and painful scar. I knew that many of the school’s servants had seen family and loved ones brutally murdered, many women enduring the very worst indignity at the hands of the soldiers. The word rape was too ugly to speak out loud, but it had certainly occupied my thoughts whenever I’d seen the soldiers beyond the school gates, and it troubled me greatly now. While none of us wanted to think about the possibility of the horrors of Nanking ever happening again, the question on all our lips was not if soldiers would arrive at the school, but when. I hoped Minnie hadn’t noticed the tremble in my hand.

‘Well, let’s hope for the best,’ Minnie continued. ‘I’m quite sure a western missionary school won’t be of any interest to them, and children have a wonderful capacity for bringing out compassion in people, don’t they? Besides, the British Navy will be on top of things. They’ll send a warship to evacuate us and we’ll be repatriated and tucking into goose and all the trimmings before you can say “Merry Christmas, Mister Scrooge.” I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they weren’t already en route.’

It was typical of Minnie to look on the bright side. Not for the first time, I found her optimism rather naïve and misplaced and I had to bite my tongue to prevent myself saying something unkind as an awful sense of dread settled in my stomach. It was the same feeling I’d woken up with on the morning of my wedding day.

In the end, calling it off was the easiest decision I’d ever made. The sun had just risen, spiderwebs draped across the hedgerows like lace veils as I’d walked up the lane to Reggie’s mother’s house and calmly explained that I couldn’t marry him after all. He wasn’t surprised. He knew he wasn’t the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. That man, Harry Evans, was buried beneath the collapsed mine he’d worked in all his adult life, and the vibrant young woman who should have married him and lived a quiet life with our children asleep in their beds and washing dancing on the line, had been buried with him.

‘God save the King,’ Minnie whispered as the broadcast came to an end.

My fingertips brushed against the envelope in my pocket. It is with much difficulty, and after a great deal of personal anguish and reflection, that I must inform you of my intention to leave my position at Chefoo School and return to my family in England … I imagined my words slipping from the page, unwritten, unseen, irrelevant now.

‘God save us all, Minnie,’ I replied. ‘God save us all.’

Immediately after assembly, we were called to an emergency meeting in the staff room.

‘I will assess the local and international situation with Mission HQ and await further instruction,’ our headmaster explained. ‘We have one hundred and twenty-four children in our care, comprising ninety British, three Canadians, five Australians, two South Africans, eighteen Americans, three Norwegians and three Dutch. The preservation of the children’s faith, safety and education must be our utmost priority until assistance arrives, and, in the meantime, it’s business as usual.’

Everything else, including my plans to return to England, would simply have to wait.

After the short meeting, we returned to our respective classrooms.

I smoothed any signs of worry from my face and walked the eleven steps to the front of the classroom, just as I had yesterday, and the many hundreds of days before that. I tapped my metre rule three times against the desk, and cleared my throat, twice. Routine and discipline sustained me in many ways, but especially on days like this.

The simmering noise of the girls’ chatter fell away as they stood behind their desks, the scraping of chair legs against the floor setting my teeth on edge.

‘Good morning, class,’ I announced.

‘Good morning, Miss Kent.’

Like a well-rehearsed song, there was a distinct harmony and tone to the exchange, but the girls’ response that morning was understandably sombre.

‘Hands together for prayers.’

When the children had closed their eyes tight, and I was certain nobody was peeping, I crumpled Emperor Hirohito’s declaration into a ball and tossed it into the wastepaper basket beneath my desk. I placed my resignation letter inside the China Inland Mission Bible in my drawer. The pages fell open at Joshua 10:25. Joshua said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous.’ Not for the first time, I wished the words meant more to me than they did.

I joined the girls in prayer, focusing on the singular truth I’d clung to all these uncertain years: that every decision I made, whether right or wrong, whether people criticized or admired me for my choices, took me closer to the place, and the person, I was meant to be. As the girls’ bright voices filled the classroom, I closed my eyes and absorbed the simple familiarity of the moment: chalk dust on my fingertips, the pool of winter sunlight against my cheek, the sounds of singing and instruction drifting along the corridors. Routine and discipline. The glue holding me together while the world was falling apart.

We were halfway through the Lord’s Prayer when the soldiers arrived.

NANCY

Our prayer puttered to a stop, and the classroom fell silent.

I opened my eyes and reached up onto my tiptoes to see what all the commotion was beyond the snow-speckled windows: the loud rumble of trucks, raised voices, doors slamming.

Miss Kent followed my gaze, all the colour having drained from her face. For a moment, the world seemed to stop, unsure of what to do with us next, until Miss Kent clapped her hands and cleared her throat.

‘Face the front, children,’ she instructed. ‘It appears our new rulers have arrived. But that’s no excuse for incomplete prayers. Start again, please. Our Father …’

But another loud noise outside pulled everyone’s attention back to the window. The low winter sun glinted against steel helmets and short swords that hung from belts. Khaki-coloured jodhpur-like trousers ballooned over the tops of glossy knee-high boots that stamped roughly across the fresh snow. I was too shocked to do anything but stare. It wasn’t the soldiers themselves that was so shocking – we’d seen them plenty of times before – it was the fact that they were here, in our school, trampling all over Wei Huan’s lovely flower beds.

‘They’re spoiling everything!’ The words came out before I could stop them. I clapped my hand over my mouth and glanced at Miss Kent, expecting a reprimand. When none came, I added, ‘Wei Huan will be so upset. They’re squashing the China roses. His favourites.’

Miss Kent started us off in the Lord’s Prayer again. I squeezed my eyes shut, swallowed hard, and pressed my knees together to stop them shaking.

‘Our Father, Who art in Heaven …’

There was an unusual wobble to Miss Kent’s voice. Even when we joined in, our combined voices couldn’t drown out the noise that was now coming from all directions. As we reached the part where we forgive those who trespass against us, an almighty commotion started up in the corridor outside the classroom. I opened my eyes a fraction and glanced at the door.

‘For Thine is the kingdom,’ Miss Kent continued, raising her voice another level until we joined her in the final words.

‘The power and the glory, Forever and ever. Amen.’

A long pause circled the classroom as we waited to see what would happen next.

Miss Kent stood at the front of the room, her cheeks as pale as chalk dust. I couldn’t remember the classroom ever being so quiet. Even Sprout was silent. She’d recently returned from a spell in the San with instructions to take Nurse Prune’s awful cough medicine. I glanced toward the door again as another loud bang came from the corridor, closer this time. Any moment now they would burst in, I was sure of it. Agnes started to cry, which set off Winnie, and then Elsie beside her. I looked at Mouse, who stared at the floor. At the back of the room, Sprout smothered a cough with her hand.

‘You can sit down,’ Miss Kent announced, finally finding her voice. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

Miss Kent rarely smiled in the classroom so I knew the smile she gave us that morning was the sort of ‘we must be brave’ smile adults use when they’re trying to pretend something awful isn’t happening. As I smiled back at her, the classroom door flew open, swung roughly back on its hinges and banged against the bookcase which fell forward with an almighty thud, spilling its books everywhere as two soldiers marched through the door. Their long boots squeaked against the polished floor as they positioned themselves on either side of Miss Kent’s desk, their dark eyes fixed on the wall at the back of the classroom where the map of the British Empire hung below a painting of King George VI. A third, older man, arrived and stood stiffly in the doorway.

‘School is now the property of Emperor Hirohito,’ he said, his voice harsh. ‘I am Commander Hayashi. You obey my orders. All children. Come.’ He waved a heavy-looking bamboo stick in the direction of the corridor.

We all looked at Miss Kent.

‘Form a neat line beside the wall, girls,’ she instructed, her voice as steady and calm as if she were about to lead us out to the bay for a spot of exercise.

We did as we were told. Nobody said a word.

With one soldier at the front of our line, and one bringing up the rear, we filed out of the classroom. I stared at the world map as I passed it, remembering how I’d borrowed Edward’s atlas before we left England and traced my fingertip around China’s vast coastline, wondering what it would be like to live somewhere as mysterious and exotic as the Far East. I’d seen so little of the real China, the China beyond the missionary and school compound walls, that I still didn’t know the answer. As Commander Hayashi marched ahead, leading us to the assembly hall, I wondered if I ever would.

Most of the other children were already gathered in the hall by the time we arrived. I looked around for Edward and was relieved to see him with his friend, Larry, and some other boys. I waved when I thought he was looking, but he didn’t wave back. I let my hand fall to my side, embarrassed for having waved at all.

‘I don’t think he saw you,’ Sprout whispered as she squeezed my hand encouragingly. ‘Connie never waves when she sees me. She doesn’t like to be seen with her little sister now that she’s all grown up and wears a brassiere.’

I told her to shush before she got into trouble for talking.

‘Wait here,’ Commander Hayashi ordered. He pointed his bamboo stick at us and then at the soldiers guarding the door. ‘Guards see everything.’

‘What an awful man,’ Sprout said when he’d gone. ‘You come here. You wait there.’

Her imitation of him made some of the girls giggle nervously.

Miss Kent overheard, and was quick to scold.

‘I do not want to hear such insolence again, Dorothy. Not from any of you,’ she snapped. I’d never seen her so cross. ‘We will show the soldiers the same courtesy and respect we would show any visitor to the school. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Miss,’ we chorused.

‘Good. Now, sit down in a circle. Nancy will start you off in a game of “I Went to the Shops”. I’ll be back in a moment.’

She crossed the hall to speak to some of the other teachers as I started us off in the memory game, but nobody could concentrate on the shopping list we tried to memorize. We only got as far as onions, sausages, buttons and blue wool before Winnie got in a terrible muddle and couldn’t even remember onions. She started to cry, which made me want to cry, too. I bit my lip to stop myself.

Miss Kent soon returned to explain that Japanese Shinto priests wished to perform a ceremony at the sports field. ‘They would like us all to wait here until the ceremony is done. Then I’m sure we’ll be able to return to our classrooms.’ She fiddled with the St. Christopher that hung from a slim gold chain at her neck. ‘How about a few rounds of “This Little Light of Mine” and “Little Peter Rabbit” while we wait?’

The songs distracted us for a while and, when we’d finished, the Latin master from the Boys’ School led us all in a rendition of ‘Jerusalem’. I thought it rather brave to sing something so patriotic, but the guards at the door hardly seemed to care and didn’t stop us. Like a perfectly hemmed seam, our voices fit neatly together, boys and girls, teachers and children, all stitched together as one. When we sang, it felt as if nothing could harm us, so we kept singing, one song after another, until we were nearly hoarse and the younger children grew fidgety and tired.

‘Are you frightened?’ Sprout whispered as we played a game of Cat’s Cradle with a piece of wool she’d found in her pocket.

‘A bit,’ I admitted. ‘Are you?’

She nodded as we moved our fingers to make the intricate patterns from the wool. ‘A bit.’

Despite the teachers assuring us there was nothing to worry about, it was impossible not to be wary with stern-looking soldiers guarding the door and others marching about outside and shouting commands and instructions at each other. It was all so different from the usual calm routine.

Sprout lowered her voice and grabbed my hand. ‘But imagine what a story we’ll have to tell when we’re rescued. We’ll be famous Chefusians, like the children who were captured by Chinese pirates on their way to school a few years ago.’

‘I’d rather not be a famous Chefusian,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I’d much rather be spending Christmas in the Western Hills with my parents.’

I wondered what my father would say when he heard the school had been overrun by ‘the Japs’ as he called them. He certainly didn’t have anything nice to say about them whenever I’d heard him discussing the Sino-Japanese war with Edward.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that we shouldn’t even have been at the school when war and the soldiers arrived. We should have been with our parents, wrapping Christmas gifts and singing carols. It made it all seem so much worse.

The morning dragged on. We waited for hours in the cold assembly hall and still the headmaster didn’t come to tell us it had all been a mistake and we could return to our classrooms and carry on as normal. Several of us needed to use the toilet. Miss Kent told those of us who couldn’t hold it any longer to follow her.

‘The children need to use the conveniences,’ she announced to the taller of the two guards. Miss Kent looked especially short beside him. I noticed how she held her head high to add an inch or two. ‘The. Toilet.’ She pointed at us, enunciating her words slowly and clearly, as grown-ups do when they’re not sure the other person understands.

The soldier looked at us without moving a muscle. We stared back, jiggling about like tadpoles, all of us bursting. He eventually seemed to comprehend the situation and waved us along.

‘Hurry,’ he said, as Miss Kent shepherded us past, making sure to stand between him and us. ‘Quick, quick.’

I stared at his sword as we marched past.

In the girls’ toilets, notices in Japanese writing had been stuck to the sinks, the mirrors, the doors, even to the bar of soap. We all spent a penny as quickly as we could and followed Miss Kent back to the assembly hall. We passed a soldier who was sticking more notices to the classroom doors and to trophy cabinets along the corridor.

‘What is he doing, Miss?’ I whispered.

‘They’re taking what is not rightfully theirs, Nancy,’ Miss Kent replied, stiffly. ‘But we won’t stand in their way. They are, after all, only things. They can’t put a notice on us, can they?’

As we passed Miss Butterworth’s classroom, Miss Kent stopped suddenly. The door was broken at the hinge and I could hear a soldier shouting orders inside.

‘You can jolly well shout all you like, young man, but you will not place one of your notices on my desk.’

I recognized Miss Butterworth’s voice, although it sounded strained, and much louder than usual.

I knew I shouldn’t look. Like the blind beggar who’d died at the end of our street in Shanghai, I knew that if Mummy were there she would tell me to cover my eyes and look away. There are some things little girls aren’t meant to see, darling. Best not to look. But the temptation to peer into the classroom was too great. I looked, and immediately wished I hadn’t. I saw the soldier raise his arm. I saw him punch Miss Butterworth in the face. I heard the clatter of books and chairs as she stumbled backwards and hit her head against the edge of the desk. And I heard the panic and fear in Miss Kent’s voice as she ran forward, screaming at the soldier. ‘Stop! Stop it! Leave her alone, you brute!’

Despite the many things I couldn’t understand that morning, I knew, with absolute certainty, that in those few horrible minutes, everything had changed. It didn’t matter that we were a Christian missionary school, or that our fathers were well respected and our mothers well dressed. In the end, our parents’ occupations, our nice homes and clothes, the language we spoke and the colour of our skin, didn’t make any difference. We were at war now. Chinese, British, American, Dutch – we were all the same.

We were the enemy.

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